


August and Everything After

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Bittersweet, Dark, Declarations Of Love, Episode: s03e20 Crossroads (2), F/M, Murder, Psychological Trauma, Secret Cylon, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 15:39:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6201010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Laura comes face to face with herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	August and Everything After

It needs to _go away now._

"Laura."

No, no, no, not going to look at it, not going to. It's not there. She's hallucinating it. Chamalla and chemo make people hallucinate. They've made her hallucinate before. She isn't going to dignify a hallucination with attention.

"Laura."

Her teeth practically squeak as she grits them. "You are not real."

"Laura." It keeps saying her name, as though she will acknowledge that...that...travesty. What she is gazing upon is a travesty.

No.

"I'm not going away. I can stay here until your Admiral Adama returns, and how will that poor man feel?"

_No._

She closes her eyes and breathes, in out in out, and oh, gods, she remembers the gun. The gun that Sharon Valerii gave her after the attempt on her life to protect her.

Gods, the irony, gods, it can't be true.

"You know the best thing to do is to get off this ship and let me take care of things. You can rest now, Laura."

A hundred times over the past five years, a thousand times, she wanted someone to tell her that, that she'd done enough, that she could rest now. Does it think that she'll give up now? It's too late to give her rest. She can't rest.

And _it_ has murdered rest beside. Even if she were tempted to rest at last, it has made rest an impossibility.

"Laura."

She can feel the hard lump of the gun now. She pulls it out from under the pillow, both hands now, Bill told her that most people need two hands on a gun, they kick, and her eyes are wide open as she aims between her own eyes.

"Get the frak away from me!" she half-hisses, half-shrieks, pulling the trigger.

A flash of light, a deafening roar, the smell of cordite. It crumples and dies, but does not melt at her feet.

No.

And she will have to live with this, because the footsteps of the marines are already resounding, and they certainly won't let her finish the job.

It looks so much like her. It's soaking her only pair of slippers with blood and all the nasty Cylon fluids, too. Frakking thing. Her only pair of slippers, and her feet get so cold, and what is she going to do for slippers now?

And there they are, marines and Doc Cottle, all saying things she can't hear, because her ears are ringing and the sound won't work right.

"I can't hear you," she says when they look at her, unsure of what to do. The marines have their guns aimed at the body on the floor, not her. They should aim the guns at her. She has a loaded gun in her possession, which she is holding rather tightly. "And it's dead."

Possibly she is in shock. The sound needs to start working, and she should put the gun down. Someone has to start behaving sanely. Doc Cottle is in shock. He is standing there. He is looking at it. One of the marines is actually crying.

Oh, gods, it is...did she shoot someone that wasn't...she needs to look again. Look closer. Just in case she was hallucinating.

But it looks just like her up close, too. She hasn't accidentally killed Admiral Adama or Cally Tyrol or Dee or anyone real, unless she has so completely lost it that she can't make its face stop being her face.

"Doctor," she says firmly. "It looks like me, doesn't it? Please tell me that it does."

Cottle jumps, shakes himself back to life. He looks at her -- what must she look like? -- and at it.

"Yes. It's..."

"I didn't kill someone else," Laura says firmly. "Good."

Yes. She needs to be Laura now. More than anything, these people need Laura to tell them what to do. Time to stop looking at it and wondering how someone who's never fired a gun could get in such a perfect shot. Even point-blank.

"Young man," she says, addressing the marine who isn't weeping. The sound has come back. Good. "Young man, do you know who I am?"

"Yes, sir, I mean, ma'am, I mean Madame President, I mean...oh gods frak, I'm gonna frakking puke," the marine says as his friend hits his forehead against the wall.

"Yes, I know," Laura says in that detached voice that she's always admired. "But you have to be strong. What are you supposed to do now?"

"I think I need you to put the gun down," the marine. "Put the gun down, please."

"Yes, that's right," Laura says, peeling her fingers from the gun, and setting it down very carefully on the bed.

"I don't know what to do," the marine says. "You shot. You're. Are you? Oh gods, oh gods, what am I gonna do?"

"This is not the time to get hysterical," Laura snaps suddenly. Oh, Laura is angry. She forgets what angry Laura can do. "You are dealing with a potential toaster, marine, one who has committed murder in the infirmary. You have a comrade in shock, and you have not secured the hostile's weapon. If I chose, I would have three hostages. Or less. You know what toasters can do when the chips are down, marine."

She hopes this speech will wake Cottle up, will make all of them stop looking at her like she's shot the family dog and bathed in its blood. But he's motionless, as though she's stabbed him in the heart and not shot herself in the head and had the indecency to stay up.

"I don't want to do this," the marine says dubiously.

"None of us wants to do this," Laura says. "Okay. Okay. Let's think about this. I think that you and I should take a walk."

"Where?" the marine asks, eyes gone wide.

"To the admiral's quarters. I won't take my gun, okay? You'll just have your gun, and we will go to Admiral Adama, okay, sweetheart?" Laura hears herself say.

Even though she's thinking that in the confusion, what she should do is pick up the gun, kill the idiots, and run so far and so fast that no one ever finds her.

That's something _it_ would do if its cover were blown. Laura isn't a coward. She won't run. Her life is over, and her slippers are soaked with blood, and she is ordering a marine to arrest her and take her to Bill Adama to finish her own execution, but running is for Baltar and other various cowards.

"Okay," the marine says, in a quavering voice, clearing his throat. "Please accompany me, ma'am."

"Of course," Laura says. "I need my coat."

"It's behind the curtain," Cottle croaks from his near-catatonia.

"Thank you," she says. "I'm sorry to leave you the mess to clean up, but as you can see..."

"It's behind the curtain."

So it is, and a different pair of shoes, so she doesn't have to leave bloody footprints as she walks to judgment.

Laura hears a woman scream, and someone else laugh, a sound that speaks more of hysterical terror than mirth.

"We should walk faster, marine," she says quietly.

"Yes," the marine agrees. His hold on his gun is still slack. He trusts her. He saw her covered in her own blood, and he trusts her not to take his gun, kill him, and escape. "Oh gods oh gods oh gods."

"You're doing very well," she says. "Extraordinarily."

"I'm still gonna puke," the marine confides. "You know how you look? You got its brains all on your face, and you got blood all over you and it's YOUR blood. And you're cool as can be. I feel like I should be running or shooting, and here I am, walking."

"We're both doing well, then," she says with a grim little laugh. That's definitely Laura.

She stopped being Laura when it walked into the room, she realizes. Now she's nobody at all. Laura is the personality, the mask. Laura is a very good Cylon agent, she realizes. The perfect sleeper.

But who is she, then?

"Right here," she says, stopping in front of Bill's door. She holds out her hand. The marine takes it, and she stills its shaking before giving it a quick shake. "Thank you."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, pulling away from her.

He opens the door and Laura steps through.

No one is waiting inside. And there are all sorts of weapons in there. So she walks to the nearest chair, sits down, and puts her hands in her lap.

"Keep watch, please," is what she says, and stares at her hands while she waits for what happens next.

* * *

He was in CIC when the call came from Cottle in the infirmary.

"Bill," and Bill Adama heard a ragged whimper from the grizzled old bastard. Cottle. Cottle was so undone by something that he had whimpered. "Gods help us all."

Ice slivers pierced his heart. "The president?" he asked, knowing without a doubt that it was the news he'd been dreading. "Laura. Tell me."

"Gods help us all, Bill," Cottle said, a sob breaking over the phone. "I walked in because there was a shot. I walked in knowing it would be bad, and I still couldn't stand the sight."

There was the rough sound of the tele-receiver being pounded against a hard surface. "Damn it, man!" Bill roared. "What the hell is going on down there?"

"She was on the floor, Bill, and those eyes of hers open. You know how her eyes could look through you? Her eyes were open, and there's a hole in her head," Cottle said brokenly. "And I look up and she's got the gun. She's holding the gun with her slippers -- those damn fuzzy slippers, make her look like she skinned a frakking cat -- and she looks at us like we're not there. And you know what she asks me, Bill?"

He's not making any sense. All Bill's gotten out of it is that someone wearing Laura's slippers killed her. And he is going to make that person pay.

"Was it Sharon? Starbuck? So help me gods, tell me who killed her before I throw you out of an airlock," Bill snarled, trying to summon up a killing rage instead of the blank despair creeping through every inch of him.

"I'm telling you, Bill, the president shot herself," said Cottle. "I'm telling you she got on her knees, in that pool of blood, staring at the hole she put between her eyes, and she looks up at me, and she tells me, 'It looks like me, doesn't it.' Then she got up and told the marine guard to take her away. She needed her coat. I told her where to get it. I couldn't stop looking at her on the floor. Lying there..."

The receiver went dead on the other end, as CIC stared at its commander.

"Sir?" Dee asked. She would have heard, then. "What are we going to do?"

"She'll want to speak to me privately," Bill Adama heard himself say as the world went numb around him. "Unless she's already killed Corporal Lennier and walked away. If that's the case, then we'll need to announce the news as soon as possible. We'll need to announce it anyway, but I'll do it. I'll do it after. After I talk to Laura."

Someone had to say it; he couldn't decide who finally did. "Sir, if she's a Cylon, she could be dangerous."

"If she's a Cylon, I'd rather she kill me than anyone else," Bill replied, trying to blink away the unnaturally bright lights of the CIC. "Mr. Agathon, you're in charge until further notice. Dee, get former Commander Adama back here, but don't tell him why until he's aboard or you can't avoid it."

It would be nice if he had a fatal heart attack before he walked into his own quarters and faced the woman he loved, covered in her own blood. But the gods weren't about to be kind, not now, when they destroyed him with a sick joke.

Be damned to her and all her kind, he wouldn't bring a gun into the room now, either. He set his service weapon on the comm and walked out instead.

Corporal Lennier was standing watch in front of his quarters, staring into nothing, jumping about ten feet when Bill touched him.

"She told me to keep watch, sir, I did what she said, she told me I was brave. I wish I was dead, but I feel brave," Lennier babbled at him, teeth chattering, and Bill realized the kid had wet himself. "I pissed myself, sir. I couldn't stand it, and she's. Gods. Can I go now?"

"Go," Bill said, touching the kid on the shoulder. "She's right. You were exemplary, Corporal."

"Thank you, sir," Lennier said, swallowing hard. "She's not afraid, either. I don't think she is. Do you?"

"I don't," Bill said. "I think you'd best go now. Clean yourself up. Get frakked up the best you can."

"Yeah, I'll do that," Lennier said, standing up and scrambling away as Bill entered his own quarters.

Laura Roslin was sitting in his chair, empty hands in her lap, bare legs covered in blood. Face and hair spattered with the debris of a head shot at point-blank range. Eyes wide open.

"Hands where you can see them, Admiral," the president said softly. "If you must, you may search me, but I don't have a weapon."

"You cannot be serious," Bill said. "You're a Cylon. You shot a duplicate self between the eyes and single-handedly broke Cottle. Frak this formal bullshit, Laura. What are you? Do you even know?"

"I'm not Laura," Laura said. "Laura Roslin, I think, was an excellent cover identity for a Cylon agent. It's brilliant, really. Who's going to look at a middle-aged schoolteacher as the ultimate sleeper agent? Would you have given me a second glance even if the military had discovered Cylons had made themselves look like us?"

His heart twisted in him, the pit of his stomach roiled and miserable as she stared into space, perfectly composed. Her voice and her appearance couldn't have been more different.

"What am I going to do," he said, not even daring to make the words a question.

"I've been asking myself that question," she replied. "What can I do? What can we do? I shot a Cylon, which in any other circumstances could disappear or be turned to my advantage. Except that I am quite probably a Cylon myself."

Bill could understand now why Cottle had broken. There wasn't a quaver in her voice as she considered, coldly, the murder of someone with her own face. On the other hand, she was sitting covered in blood and brain bits, unfazed, a possible sign of the trauma she was unable to process.

"Do you want a shower?" he asked. "Before we put you in the brig. You should clean up and eat something."

Laura looked up at him, putting a hand on her face and then looking at what came away. She blinked rapidly, looking at her hand and then at Bill and back and forth rapidly.

"I don't feel very human right now," she said softly. "Except I can't remember being a Cylon at all. And I don't think I should leave here unless there are guards. Tempers are going to run ugly, Bill."

Their eyes met, and his head swam with all the love he felt, despite the blood and betrayal. Her eyes were so much like the Laura Roslin's he'd known.

He nodded, and went to his cabinets, getting a large bowl to take to the sink. "Get undressed," he said brusquely. "I'll clean you up, and then I'll have some guards take you someplace safe."

Laura nodded, stood up, and took off her coat. "I'm sorry," she said, untying her hospital gown distractedly. She'd been waiting in a hospital gown, blood, and her coat. Gods, the blood splashed up her legs. "I don't think this is the way you wanted to see me naked for the first time."

"I don't think anything about this is the way we wanted," Bill said, taking a hand towel and soaking it in the warm water before soaping it up and walking over to the woman who was looking at him with profound sympathy.

He knelt beside her, realizing her skin was cold as he put the towel on her knee, slowly washing away the blood. The water in the basin took on a dingy, pink tone, that slowly became reddish brown before he finished one leg and had to get another bowl of water.

It took him seven bowls to finish cleaning her up, and when he'd finished, she put her forehead on his shoulder, shivering now.

"There are going to be more of them," Laura said. "You know that, don't you? This doesn't get to end for us. And I am just so sorry."

"Your extra suit is in the closet," he murmured, stroking the top of her head. "I'll get Tigh to send down three of the best. And I'll escort you personally to the cell."

"You can't come with me," she said. "It won't look good, and people will look to you to see if you can handle this."

He couldn't handle it. The cosmic jest of the gods; Bill didn't know how he was going to handle losing Laura Roslin, who was pressed against him naked and more tired than any woman he loved should be, and still stronger than him.

"I love you," he said, pulling her closer. "I've wanted to tell you for a long time now, but I thought it would be better to wait. I love you."

But that wasn't enough. Not only was love not enough, it only made things worse.

"Love your people more and let me go, Bill," Laura said. "If you love me, you'll protect them."

She pulled away, something infinitely lost and sad and wanting flickering in her eyes.

He sat down in the chair where she had waited for him and stared at his hands while she dressed for the end of everything.


End file.
